Sánchez visits Morocco to boost relations after past tensions

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez praised his country’s bilateral relations with Morocco during an official visit to the North African country on Wednesday, where he met with King Mohamed VI.

Sanchez was accompanied by Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares. They were welcomed at Rabat airport by Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch and a guard of honour.

After meeting Akhannouch, Sanchez praised the “model of constructive neighbourhood” between the two countries, which he said was based on trust and mutual respect.

Sanchez said relations with Morocco, a country he described as a “friend and strategic partner”, were the best they had been in decades.

Boost bilateral ties after past tensions

It is Sanchez’s first visit to Morocco since being appointed for a second term at the end of last year, and his fifth overall.

The meeting came after a year of tense relations, which ended in March 2022 with Sanchez sending a letter to Mohamed VI saying that a 2007 Moroccan proposal to resolve the decades-old conflict in Western Sahara – a disputed territory in northwest Africa on Morocco’s southern border – was the “most serious, credible and realistic” basis for resolving the dispute.

The high-level summit in 2023 helped improve relations after years of tension.

Madrid angered Rabat in 2021 when it granted medical treatment to Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, which wants independence for Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony.

In May 2021, a month after Ghali was admitted to a Spanish hospital, at least 8,000 migrants crossed the border between Morocco and Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta after Moroccan border guards allegedly abandoned their duties.

In June 2022, at least 23 migrants were killed on the border between Morocco and Melilla – another Spanish enclave – after a crowd of hundreds attempted to breach the border.

The tragedy put a spotlight on Spain’s handling of migration in its North African territories of Ceuta and Melilla, which are often the location of mass violations.

Amnesty International believes as many as 37 people were killed in the June crossing attempt.

Sanchez replaced former foreign minister Arancha González Laya with Albares under pressure from Morocco as a condition for reconciliation. (José Miguel Blanco | EFE and Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)